Many encounters in our lives, which we often find insignificant, leave visible traces at the intersections and the roads that are before us. Sometimes we unconsciously follow these traces. Often years pass until we realize that some people had a great influence on our lives and on the decisions we made. There are moments when we want to bring back the time and delete those encounters, and then we realize that this is all part of our growing up and maturing through which we had to pass. All these intricate roads and sometimes inevitable people help us defeat challenges and see shortcuts. Today’s world is complex. Our constant aspiration to make it clearer and easier often leads us to the trap. The best things are still hard to come by, as it was many centuries ago. All that is rarely and valuable is not available to everyone, but patiently waiting for the most persistent somewhere in the distance to find it. As we travel along these intricate paths towards some, often unattainable goals, we constantly meet new, strange people. Some of them are seamlessly drawn into our lives and become their integral part. We only discover this when everything we build is broken into small pieces and when our life begins to look like a mosaic, which we are trying to put together again. As we rummage through multicolored pieces of glass, ceramics and stone, memories are flashing at moments. They persistently break through the crevices of the broken sky and, without a call, pass through our thoughts and return us to the events and places where we once left traces. Like on a movie tape, the dark, dusty streets and the sun-sanded coastlines shift. In one of the many big, noisy cities, where everything was at your fingertips, and yet somehow strange and far away, I met Charlie. When they wander off, my thoughts often meet him in one of the long, endless streets. At first glance, he did not differ in any way from other people, except in the movements, which looked more like a twitch than movements. Nevertheless, with his way of life and worldview, he stood out from the environment. Everything about him was covered with veil of secret. I always had the impression that only a small part of him was present, and that the larger, invisible, was hidden and locked in an unknown dimension, visible only to him and his thoughts. We talked about everything, mostly about music, paintings and people. He said he loved my paintings because they were distant. I do not know what exactly he meant by that, but I know that everything about him was far and inaccessible. He even built his own home in the hills away from the city, which, at night, watched from his balcony, reminded of the Vaadhoo beaches in the Maldives. The swarms of bluish blinking lights sent signals that somewhere all teeming with life and that its beauty, wonders and transience could only be seen by observing it from a distance. – I’ve always been close to people, but I’ve never really come close to them. Many people and events can be much better viewed from a distance. This is the only way to provide you with enough time and space to leave and move away. When they fall, if you’re far enough, they will not be able to pull you with them – Charlie said. His selfie was always at a distance and in inaccessible places, so that you could previously notice unidentified flying objects on it rather than see any traces of a being or part of the Earth. On the roof of his spacious home stood a telescope, directed toward the sky, from which he could at any moment travel to the distant galaxies and their stars and to socialize with them. Even his boat, lonely, stood in the distance, ready to leave at all times waves and shores. In this infinity they have remained to sail his unfinished life stories and unfulfilled desires he never talked about. Perhaps one day they will find them and pick up some stray ship in some new time, and maybe his bottle of messages will throw off a tide on some shores where only the distance is running. Charlie spent all his life on some waves, armed with caution. He was always ready for the rain. And in the gloomy days, his mornings were painted with some blue color. He liked autumn because it was hiding the curtains of foliage and revealing the views. In one of those views has remained trapped his future and love, which, for reasons known only to him, he never achieved. Nevertheless, he never returned to the past and did not hurry to the future. The only thing he regretted about was the tango. That mysterious dance did not give him peace. There was something inexplicably perfect in those movements, yet again somewhat dangerous in the connection between the two people who performed them. Charlie was afraid of this connection, and he could never cross an invisible boundary that would disturb his distance and take him in closeness. – When people get tired of their own stupidity, they try to transfer that same nonsense to others, like the cargo they want to get rid of – he often spoke. Released from these cargoes, everything he did, Charlie worked with ease. He completely put himself in every part of his work. Like a wall, he hid his sources of thirsty souls and did not allow anyone to touch his distances. The strength of these sources we could only see from his eyes, movements and tones that came from the concert hall. While I watched him perform the Chopin’s Ballades with ease, I remembered the days spent with the piano. Part of me became Charlie.